Three Cheers For Astronomy Poem by gershon hepner

One face launched a thousand ships,
but when Odysseus returned
to Ithaca did an eclipse
obliterate the sun that spurned
the suitors of Penelope
on April 16, B.C.E?
1178. Could be!
Give three cheers for astronomy,
and three more for the patient wife
who with a distaff and a spindle
told suitors they should get a life.
Her devotion didn’t dwindle,
like the valor woman praised
by Solomon, as un-
eclipsed by her old man, she blazed
with love as faithful as the sun.


John Noble Wilford writes that an eclipse of the sun on April 16,1178 B.C.E. may have occurred when Odysseus returned to Ithaca to rejoin Penelope after the Trojan War (“Homecoming of Odysseus May Have Been in Eclipse, ” NYT, June 24,2008) :
That Odysseus took his time,19 years, getting home to Ithaca from the Trojan War is the story Homer engraved in the “Odyssey.” But exactly when did he rejoin his Penelope, who had been patient beyond belief? Plutarch thought a crucial passage in the 20th book of the “Odyssey” to be a poetic description of a total solar eclipse at the time of Odysseus’ return. A century ago, astronomers calculated that such an eclipse occurred over the Greek islands on April 16,1178 B.C., the only one in the region around the estimated date of the sack of Troy. But nearly all classics scholars are highly skeptical of any connection. An analysis of astronomical references in the epic has led two scientists to conclude that the homecoming of Odysseus, usually considered a fictional character set in the context of a real historical event, possibly coincided with the 1178 solar eclipse. If, that is, Homer indeed had in mind an eclipse when he wrote of a seer prophesying the death of Penelope’s waiting suitors and their entrance into Hades. The new interpretation of the eclipse hypothesis is reported in this week’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Constantino Baikouzis and Marcelo O. Magnasco, scientists at the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at Rockefeller University in New York and at the Astronomical Observatory of La Plata, in Argentina. They concede that scholars of Homer are still not likely to give much credence to the idea. But it makes for an intriguing story, one that the blind bard, a mystery himself, would have appreciated… Although an eclipse is not mentioned anywhere in the story, there are omens and what Plutarch inferred was a poetic description of a total solar eclipse. Odysseus has arrived home, disguised in beggar’s rags and in hiding before revealing himself. It happens that, when Penelope’s persistent suitors sit down for a noontime meal, they start laughing uncontrollably and see their food spattered with blood. At this strange moment, the seer Theoclymenus foretells their death, ending with the sentence, “The Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world.” There are reasons to think that the darkness of a total eclipse had just fallen on Ithaca. It was close to noon when the 1178 eclipse occurred over the Ionian Sea. It was, as mentioned several times in the story, at the time of a new moon, which the scientists point out is “a necessary condition for a solar eclipse.” And what better atmospherics to accompany a prophecy of doom than a total eclipse, which was considered an ill omen?


6/24/08